


How Damon Salvatore averted the zombie apocalypse (and got laid after)

by pleasebekidding



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 07:00:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5154605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasebekidding/pseuds/pleasebekidding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alaric’s not capable of making the right decision, and Bonnie hasn’t nixed the whole plan, so it’s down to Damon to do the right thing. Hydrofluoric acid, apparently, that’s what the cool kids use, so Damon buys a bottle of the stuff, and fill up a big ol’ plastic bowl (duly warned that it will dissolve glass) and while Alaric is who-knows-where doing who-knows-what Damon dissolves the Phoenix stone for once and for all.<br/>--<br/>AU post Season 7, episode 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Damon Salvatore averted the zombie apocalypse (and got laid after)

**Author's Note:**

> A fluffy (for Dalaric) birthday present for my dear friend Kinder. Happy birthday babe!

Damon knows about the stone, but he doesn’t speak about the stone. Guy thing. And Alaric knows Damon knows about the stone, and Damon knows Alaric knows Damon knows about the stone. But no one’s talking about it. Guy things are weird.

Damon waits. Mostly he’s expecting Bonnie to put her foot down so Damon won’t have to. He’s read the notes she made, her sketches (not bad; he hadn’t known she had a talent for it), figures all that’s needed is a dramatic scrawl that says ‘zombie apocalypse???’ on the bottom of the final page and it will be a cute historical artifact, one day.

But Bonnie says nothing. Sometimes, she’s fucking terrifying. Damon thinks she wants to do it just so that she can prove to herself that she has enough power to raise the dead.

Alaric’s not capable of making the right decision, and Bonnie hasn’t nixed the whole plan, so it’s down to Damon to do the right thing. Hydrofluoric acid, apparently, that’s what the cool kids use, so Damon buys a bottle of the stuff, and fill up a big ol’ plastic bowl (duly warned that it will dissolve glass) and while Alaric is who-knows-where doing who-knows-what Damon dissolves the Phoenix stone for once and for all.

\--

Alaric doesn’t get angry. Damon wishes he would. He stares at Damon for a good three minutes, and then he closes his eyes. And he takes a bottle of Jack Daniels, barely touched, off the coffee table and disappears into his bedroom.

Two nights later, Damon comes home to find Alaric has sobered up, showered, and cleaned the tiny faculty house they’ve been Bert and Ernie-ing in, which is completely weird. He skipped the vacuuming, though, so it’s not liked he’s actually possessed. He’s sitting on the couch in low light, with a cup of tea going cold on the coffee table.

Damon senses danger. Drunk Alaric is a known quantity but to the best of his knowledge Alaric has never made a cup of tea before.

“Okay there buddy?”

“I’m alone,” Alaric says, without looking up, and it stings, but Damon gets it, because he’s alone too.

“Yeah,” he says, dropping into the couch and taking the mug, sipping the tea, which actually isn’t completely cold and tastes sort of interesting. “But at least you’re in good company.”

\--

Jo’s funeral is a small affair. No family, of course. Just the gang, and for some reason it doesn’t feel right for anyone to speak. No one asks why it’s been months. No one comments on anything much at all and when the coffin is taken away for cremation, they drift off on pairs and threes until it’s only Alaric and Damon sitting on ugly velvet chairs and staring at the wall.

“What will you do with the ashes?”

Alaric closes his eyes. His Adam’s apple moves up and down like he’s swallowing a sob, fighting off the tears Damon still hasn’t seen fall – probably, he hasn’t shed any since that night.

“I'll take ’em back to her family home,” he says, quietly. “There’s a headstone in their plot. Seems like the right thing to do.”

“The right thing to do. What do you _want_ to do with them?”

Alaric meets his eyes, and shakes his head, and he goes, he just goes.

\--

The first few months are hard. The binge drinking is less frequent than it was after Jenna died but it’s more severe when it happens. Damon is an enabling piece of shit and he knows it, just drags Alaric to bed once he’s passed out, on his side so he won’t inhale puke in his sleep and die which would be a sucky end to the story. But grief can only stay intense so long. There are days when Alaric laughs, and days when Damon does, too. Two beers only at Scull bar and nights spent reading on the couch.

Sometimes Damon thinks of Elena and how she should be there and his stomach is gripped with pain. And Alaric reaches out, takes his hand, and they look at each other, because if one of them can do this they can both do this and that’s really the only option.

They’re both alone. But at least they’re in good company.

\--

It occurs to Damon that there’s no harm in maybe scratching an itch when he gets home late one night to strange sounds and realizes Alaric is jerking off in the shower. He raises his eyebrows and pours a drink and settles in with a copy of Fahrenheit 451, Alaric’s copy with pages like silk because he’s read it so many times. When Alaric leaves the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his hips he blushes so hard his entire body bursts into flame – well, okay, not literally, but it’s a beautiful sight, and his chest reddens, and he looks to be trying to ask a question but decides against it. Damon flutters his eyelashes.

“Hot date?”

“Asshole.” Alaric turns, irritated, heads to the bedroom to dress, and returns with a scowl on his face.

“A hundred and seventy five years experience,” Damon sings, holding up one hand and waggling his fingers. “Just saying.”

He’s half expecting to get something thrown at him, but Alaric throws his head back and laughs.

“Quid pro quo, of course,” he says, with his eyes sparkling so bright the hazel looks nearly green and Damon notices for the first time in years just how fucking attractive he is. He delivers another of his trademark smirks and raises and eyebrow before turning back to his book, and licking his lips.

“Sometimes charity is its own reward,” he purrs.

\--

“Some days I think it’s all gonna be okay,” Alaric says, a few nights later, sitting on the couch with a box of Szechuan chicken in his hand. He sets the empty box aside a minute later and takes a sip of beer. “You know, some days… I just think it’s gonna be alright.” And his yes are clear, and he’s been sober-ish for a couple of weeks so his skin is bright and no one has improved with age the way Alaric is improving with age.

Has to be a way to show his appreciation so Damon crawls across the couch. Feline, predatory, up over Alaric’s body.

“What are you doing,” Alaric says, wary, but definitely interested. He shifts on the couch, looking for a better angle so he can bolt, but by the time Damon has his jeans unzipped and Alaric’s dick in his hand there’s no further chance of that happening. Alaric’s head rolls back, for a moment, but he grabs Damon’s wrist in the next.

“Is this a good idea?”

“Sex is always a good idea,” Damon says, and ten minutes later he’s learned what Alaric’s face looks like when he comes, and he’s determined to see it again.

\--

And two days after that Damon crosses the living room wearing nothing but a towel and a smile and Alaric follows him to the bedroom, pushes him onto his back and delivers a world class blow job Damon considers describing for the local paper. His jaw is sore, after, and Damon laughs at him.

“How long since you last did that?”

Alaric cringes. “Since… before I started datin’ Isobel, I guess. Fifteen years, maybe.”

“Not too rusty,” Damon purrs, and rolls over, straddling Alaric’s hips, rocking against him. “Should see what else you can remember.”

They stare at each other for a few moments, and then Alaric pushes him off. Spell broken, for now. But it’s not broken by much. Next few days their hands and mouths are used in increasingly creative ways. They don’t talk about it. They don’t push it any further. But this is definitely friends with benefits territory, now. And the benefits are excellent.

Damon sometimes wishes Alaric would just stay put and spend the night, but he never asks. He’ll never ask.

\--

Things heat up and get worse and there are heretics and an insane ripper mom who loves her ripper babies and the town Damon grew up in and sometimes they don’t see each other for days. Alaric and Bonnie sit up for hours, reading over spell books, trying to find spells that can’t be siphoned away, and there’s nothing, there’s still not a thing. But they try. Damon thinks Alaric should maybe be getting a little more sleep, since he is, after all, human and fallible, and he gets grumpy and cuts corners when he’s tired, and there’s not as much groping; but since they have a common goal and it’s kind of an important one, he skips over the criticism and makes sure the coffee and bourbon consumption roughly even each other out.

\--

In the Scull Bar with a handful of their nearest and dearest. Matt, who is miraculously still alive (Damon’s gonna lose a bet if the kid ever turns twenty-five) and Enzo, who’s sort of back in the fold, even if he is butt-hurt about Damon’s mom (ew), Caroline and Stefan who have the local wildlife gathering close and staring adoringly. Alaric is meeting them, too, and Damon finds his gaze shifting to the door every few moments, checking his watch. Ugh, there’s a slim chance there are actual feelings involved, here, how completely gross.

They’re down to one lousy heretic and mama Salvatore to kill and they’re out of ideas, so drinking seemed to be a good idea for the night.

And the door opens, and there’s Alaric, and he has a Look about him.

He stops abruptly when he sees Damon, and beckons him with a finger. Damon flounces across the room.

“Something afoot? Heretic thing? Mommy issues? Bonnie broke a nail? Something a platonic blow job could fix? Platonic hand job? Want to graduate to kissing on the mouth?”

He’s being silly, of course, because kissing on the mouth is one of their favorite things to do, especially after a platonic blow–

“I was thinking something more along the lines of platonically tying you to the bed and fucking you until you can’t see,” Alaric growls in his ear.

Across the room, Enzo chokes on his drink, Caroline and Stefan look up with matching wide eyed expressions of horror. Matt just looks concerned, with a side of ‘I really don’t want to know’.

Alaric grits his teeth.

“Fucking vampire hearing,” he says, but he tugs on Damon’s coat sleeve, and they go.

They never get around to the rope. But all other promises are effectively delivered on. Damon can’t remember having been so thoroughly fucked and he relaxes on the bed afterwards, limbs loose and liquid, muscles aching in a way he wishes wasn’t doomed to vanish in a few more minutes. Alaric lies on his back alongside, staring at the ceiling.

Fuck it; Damon sneaks closer, rests his head on Alaric’s shoulder.

“Thing is,” he says, quietly, and Alaric turns his head. “Didn’t feel exactly platonic.”

Alaric nods. “I don’t think it is, anymore.”

They’re not a bad bet for each other. They’re not.

\--

Alaric hates the gray in his hair, but Damon doesn’t. He looks like Indiana Jones, standing at the front of his classroom, still weaving wonders for young minds. Damon sometimes watches. He likes watching. Alaric scratches his chin and Damon thinks about stubble brushing over thighs, and he shivers.

Hasn’t been platonic in twelve years, now.

And what will they get? Alaric’s been clear, he won’t turn. So maybe another thirty years, unless his liver gives out sooner. And he says sometimes he’s just looking after Damon for now because Elena will be back one day, and there’s something nice about the fact he can say that and there’s no hurt in it. If Damon knows anything, it’s this; you can love more than one person if you’ve got a big dumb heart and he and Alaric have mastered that particular art.

He waits sort of patiently in Alaric’s office with a smile on his face and a glass of bourbon in his hand.

If this is alone, he’s just glad for the company.

 


End file.
